Since 2009, as part of diagnostic and antimicrobial stewardship strategies, Hampshire Hospitals National Health Service (NHS) Trust has used serum procalcitonin (PCT) – an innovative and highly specific marker to diagnose clinically relevant bacterial infections and sepsis. Report: Mark Nicholls
Certain commonly prescribed anti-nausea medications given to patients during or after an operation could increase their risk of developing an irregular heartbeat, new research has found.
More than 60,000 Australians are estimated to have reduced or discontinued their use of prescribed cholesterol-lowering statin medications following the airing of a two-part series critical of statins by ABC TV's science program, Catalyst, a University of Sydney study reveals in the latest Medical Journal of Australia.
Mutations in ARID1a, which are common in many cancer types, disrupt DNA damage repair in cancer cells, allowing the cancer to progress. This gene may also be an Achilles' heel when treating certain tumors, according to a team of researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
A multi-year study led by researchers from the Simons Center for Data Analysis (SCDA) and major universities and medical schools has broken substantial new ground, establishing how genes work together within 144 different human tissues and cell types in carrying out those tissues' functions.
Expecting 10,000 participants, prior to the 25th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Copenhagen, Denmark (25-28 April) its Programme Director, Professor Winfried V Kern MD, was keen to point out: ‘The findings and recommendations that emerge from this vibrant platform each year have, in the past, had a tremendous impact not only on guidelines and best…
Prescribing antibiotics for a viral infection with fever, a cold and a cough? There is no point! This is the best-known example of over-use in medicine. There are also numerous examples of diagnostic procedures and therapies that are pointless, yet still being doled out in surgeries and hospitals – sometimes even harming a patient. This is set to change, according to the German Society of…
A group of leading scientists has warned that Britain and Europe collectively could face more than a million deaths in an impending "Antibiotic Armageddon” unless more is spent on developing new cures, rapid diagnostics and preventative measures to combat the spread of drug resistant diseases.
30 years after HIV was discovered to be the cause of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome AIDS, and despite intensive research, no vaccine or cure has yet been found. An international team of scientists, in collaboration with the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) and the University Hospital of Cologne, has now tested a new generation of antibodies in humans for the first time. They…
Damage to the spinal cord rarely heals because the injured nerve cells fail to regenerate. The regrowth of their long nerve fibers is hindered by scar tissue and molecular processes inside the nerves. An international team of researchers led by DZNE scientists in Bonn now reports in Science that help might be on the way from an unexpected quarter: in animal studies, the cancer drug epothilone…
The Calité Research group at the Miguel Hernández University (UMH) of Elche together with the Department of Statistics, Mathematics and Computer Science, have designed the app ‘Alicia’. The aim of this application adapted to iPhone, iPad and Android, is to help patients over 65 years with multiple pathologies to administer their own medication at home.
With an estimated fatality rate of 52%, the need to discover a cure for Ebola has never been more urgent. New research published in Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics this month suggests that scientists currently investigating potential cures for the Ebola virus should focus more attention on the protein furin.
Fever, vomiting, internal and external bleeding – these are the symptoms of the Ebola virus infection. The current epidemic in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone is the largest recorded Ebola outbreak ever and a serious challenge for the healthcare institutions worldwide.
Founded in Germany 25 years ago, EKF Diagnostics’ PLC HQ is currently in Cardiff, Wales, where the firm is pursuing the development of a molecular assay for specific cancer types.
While the Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now (GAIN) Act of 2012 has been a significant step in the right direction for encouraging novel antibiotics research, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) remains one step behind its European equivalent, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), according to an analyst with research and consulting firm GlobalData.
Finnish pharma company Orion and German healthcare giant Bayer have entered into an agreement for the development and commercialisation of a novel drug targeting prostate cancer.
Using pictures and symbols, rather than handwritten words, on prescriptions helps illiterate patients take their medicines correctly when they leave hospital, say doctors today. The idea was first tested in a hospital in Pakistan using simple pictures of the sun, moon and stars to help patients understand when and how long to take their medication for.
Bayer has agreed to acquire the consumer care business of U.S. pharmaceutical company Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA, for a purchase price of USD 14.2 billion (EUR 10.4 billion).
Diarrhoea caused by Clostridium difficile, which remains an issue in hospital settings, has been the focus of Cochrane Collaboration scientists, who now suggest that taking probiotics at the same time as antibiotics could help to maintain a healthy balance of bacteria in the gut, particularly as antibiotics can disturb the ecosystem of organisms normally present in the digestive system.
Neurologists keenly debate the value of mechanical reopening of blocked blood vessels in the brain, as demonstrated during the 21st World Congress for Neurology (WCN) in Vienna this September. Theoretically, endovascular thrombolysis can only be considered for 20-30% of all incidents of stroke.
In the country’s first scientific study to correlate the demographic changes and frequency of tumorous diseases, demographic changes have led scientists to forecast a significant increase in the number of cancerous diseases in coming years.
The current financial crisis is having a major impact on European economies, especially that of Spain. Past evidence suggests that adverse macro- economic conditions exacerbate mental illness, but evidence from the current crisis is limited.
Samsung BioLogics today announced that Samsung BioLogics and F. Hoffmann-La Roche have entered into a long term strategic manufacturing agreement under which Samsung will manufacture Roche's proprietary commercial biologic medicines at its two manufacturing facilities in Incheon, South Korea, of which one is currently under construction.
The German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and Bayer HealthCare (Bayer) will extend their successful strategic research alliance in search of novel cancer therapeutics by focusing their activities also on the field of immunotherapy.
‘All human body cells contain the same DNA, but every type of cell – for example a muscle cell compared to that of a nerve – has a different gene expression pattern’, said Dr Sonja Stadler, speaking at the 2012 congress of DGKL (German Society for Clinical Chemistry).